Technical Recap tires?

That old tire has a few years on a lot of our members. HRP

 

It appears to be studded, too. That's the best thing going for icy roads......short of chains!

 

Legal or not, anyone who runs recaps on a steer axle is asking for trouble.


Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

Back in the 60s recap $8 tread life 10,000 miles for a 16 year old kid.

 

Squirrel’s example there looks new compared to the one on the front of my old Massey 50..

Someone mentioned the sawdust snow tires back a bit- my brother’s (high school ride) 54 chev pu had a pair of those, one on the side mount and one laying in the bed. Kinda surprised us both that they worked as good as they did.


Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

Ok, so there I was....cruising through the Oregon mountains in my 55 chevy hardtop with a full set of white letter polyglas GTs that I'd had recapped. Passed a Greyhound bus on the 2 lane hiway and just as I was clearing it the right front cap came off! I was able to complete the pass and immediately pulled over on the right shoulder....there was a bathroom there so I could clean out my pants.
Never ran recaps again.

 

I ran them on my last C30 Chevy truck, 17.5" tubeless and they held up well. They were heavy as hell.

 

Towel City recaps (radial tire casing), on the rear of my 3 window. Hurst recaps (radial tire casing) in the rear of the ‘55 Chevy

 

I have Hurst recaps on Michelin radial casings on my Modified Roadster, so far so good!

 

Just my opinion but I think a 20 year old bias ply recap is much safer than a 10 year old radial. I bought a 60 Pontiac Catalina this year . New years day estate auction. the tag expired in 1970. The tires where all flat. bias ply street tires with innertubes on front the rear where the same tire that has been recapped as a rough tread. I inflated them and they are still holding air over 6 months later. So these tires are likely 50 years old.

 

They were the go to tires when I was a broke kid. HRP

 

I just watched an episode of Aaron Kaufman Needs a Job on Motor Trend On Demand where he re-capped a set of tires for a Jeep Renegade. It was interesting to see how it was done, but I think for piece of mind, I'd just buy new.

 

My uncle had a tire recapping business in , of all places, Tire Hill Pa. back in the late 60's (outside of Johnstown Pa. Did a thriving business. Yep, the sawdust studded recaps were a hit! They would only last the winter, but traction was great.

 

Danny, I like you remember the recap shop i my little town, I used to go there when I was 16 to get some of the old rubber that peeled off in the process, I would take it and pour a little gas on it in a cup or jar to make tire black, worked good ,back they didn't make it in a can. I sure miss the good old days !

 

If you miss the good old days, just turn off the air conditioner.

 

Haven't you guys seen all the recap carcasses on the interstates. These recaps could tear a hot rod all to pieces.

 

Those are not recaps. those are tread thrown from radial tires. I would bet not one in a hundred is from a bias ply or a retread.Most folks who lamblast bias ply tires or Recaps have never used them.

 

I've thrown a few caps on trailers in my time. Peeled the tire right down to the steel belts, sometimes taking the steel belts with it. Almost always it was a tire that had been capped three or four times. I never cap one over twice and I have never had that problem with them. I think the heat in the capping process breaks down the tire a certain extent, you can get away with it a couple of times, but after that, you have a ticking bomb waiting to explode.

Must be a regional thing, but I've never seen a sawdust filled cap, how did that work? Was the sawdust in the rubber, or in pockets in the tread?

 

I never saw the process, but I was told that the sawdust only went into the top of the tread. In the process of doing a recap I am familiar with , the raw rubber is in the form of a belt which has the bonding side covered with a pullaway plastic, which reveals a sticky surface that is manually applied to the tire, and rolled by hand to help with the bonding.
My guess is, that the sawdust could be added to the contact surface, after the belt is bonded to the tire, and before it goes into the mold.
I heard of this process, but don't recall ever seeing a tire done this way. Back in the early 60s, I had already converted to using radial tires, and never bought recaps.
Bob

 

Back in the 60's I worked at a tire shop that recapped tires . The rubber had the sawdust incorporated in the rubber . After buffing the casing we would spray who knows what chemical on casing before laying the rubber on the casing evenly as possible . Then put in the gas fired molds to cook for a specified time . The Ohio State Highway Patrol used our sawdust caps every winter in my area . Was a hot, smelly, and dirty job for $.75 an hour .

 

I've been running recap cheater slicks on my 55 for about 10 years. This is both on the street, and on the strip. I wore out the first pair, (Hurst 8 1/2 "wide), and bought a pair of 8" Towel City cheaters last year. No problems with either set.

 

The sawdust was in the rubber, my Dad used to run them in the Winter on his work truck.

 

I have 16 recaps on my truck right now. In 40 years of driving truck never knew caps are ok on the steer axle. In all the miles I have run only tossed 2 cap off. same set of drive tires 1 month apart, bad tires?

 

Growing up in the 60ty's if we had a tire with tread on it, it was a recap. Didn't have money for any new tires. When a tire blew out you then knew it was time to find another tire. Never went anywhere without some kind of spare tire because odds were you were going to need it to get home on.

 

I’ve got 16 caps on the ground right now, too. When we get new trailers they have new tires, when they wear out from then on they get caps unless you have to buy a new tire on the road.
Yeah, you probably got a couple of bad casings. I’ve had them put new caps on my trailer and not make it 50 miles before they blew.
Roadway and Yellow Freight, now combined into YRC used to run caps on the steers. Their trucks were governed to something like 60 mph. Don’t know if they still do or not.

 

They don't. They were one of our customers. Lots of companies order trailers with new STEER tires. Pull them off and put on retreads. Lower cost that way.
The retread industry is always evolving from an engineering standpoint to remain a viable partner in the trucking industry. It's all about lowering the cost per mile.
In 35 years, I saw it go from a kind of haphazard process with mold caps on bias casings, moving in to radials, which had a helluva learning curve, to a precise, highly controlled process to guarantee a product that would give a wear rate and life equal to a new tire. The advances in new tire casing design completed the product.

Did you know that the majority of junk on highways is not from the cap coming off, but from running the tire underinflated until either the belt package or sidewall lets go? Container chassis' are the worst, from a lack of tire maintenance on a cheap retread and only the need to get it from point
A to B.

School's over. Back to your regular scheduled program.

 

Running trucks I would expect this.
I honestly cant see where this has anything to do with Hot Rods.
A poster above claims to run slicks with caps ... I would not. But if you got a set of tires and you let your car sit for ten years, the recaps are probably all you need.
Recaps are simply new tread on old tires.

 

Weren't the slicks of old recaps too? Or did I just dream that up?

 

Radials on road tractors, or semi's as some mistakenly label them, are all you can get now. Most companies of any size will use their own worn down virgin rubber casings and have them recapped for drive or trailer tires. No re-caps are allowed on steer axles.

 

first set of tires on my high school car were recaps. then I put on Kelly Superchargers with raised white letters.

I was so cool back then.